Wednesday's letters: Our world changed that day

Wednesday

Nov 20, 2013 at 12:01 AM

The approach of the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy evokes many memories.

The approach of the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy evokes many memories.I sat in Mrs. Parks’ fifth-grade classroom at Pine Street Elementary School when Principal Jervey Dupre announced over the intercom that the president had been shot in Dallas.Our world changed that day, just as it did for my parents’ generation on Dec. 7, 1941. Those alive today can remember where we were when the news came across.That Sunday I remember my mother screaming for my father, saying “They shot that man!” — speaking about Jack Ruby shooting Lee Harvey Oswald. I think it was about this time that my mother shared with my sister and me that one of our relatives, Mary Surratt, had played a role in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. She had the distinction of being the first woman hanged by the federal government. My mother professed all her life that she was innocent.Jackie Kennedy taught us how to grieve with grace and dignity over those next few days.Vietnam was only a small country, and I doubt if anyone in the United States even knew where it was located in 1963. According to William Manchester’s book, “One Brief Shining Moment,” fewer than 60 U.S. participants had been killed in Vietnam during Kennedy’s last two presidential years.The assassination of President Kennedy opened the door to the dark abyss of the 1960s that ended with Kent State.President Kennedy’s ungiven speech at the Dallas Trade Mart contained these final remarks: “We, in this country, in this generation, are — by destiny rather than choice — the watchmen on the walls of world freedom. ... For as was written long ago: ‘except the Lord keep the city, the watchmen waketh but in vain.’ ”William Littlejohn